A new film explores just how deep
animal emotions can run -- especially in those reared by humans. Anthea
Gerrie meets its two star conservationists

*Tuesday, 21 June 2011*

The milk of human kindness is as crucial as substitute mothers' milk to
the survival of orphaned wildlife, say two female conservationists who have
given hundreds of endangered animals a second chance to live and spawn a new
population in the wild.

The animals need surrogate parents to help
heal their grief at losing theirmothers; unless they can rebuild trust
and attachment they may die of abroken heart. Orphans old enough to
survive in the wild may becomepsychopathic if deprived of adult role
models, like delinquent teenagersfrom broken homes. This is the view of
Dame Daphne Sheldrick and Dr BiruteMary Galdikas, who have played
surrogate mother to hundreds of orphanedelephants and orangutans
respectively. They believe their charges share withhumans a depth of
emotion that has gone unacknowledged.

"Through studying elephants
every minute of every day from infancy toadulthood, I have learned about
their interior lives," says Dame Sheldrick,the first person to
successfully raise an orphaned elephant from birth."I've discovered they
have the capacity to feel pain, sadness and happiness,to have fun and to
experience fear. Everything that happens to humans is replicated in
elephants."

Dame Sheldrick was in London promoting a new film whose
soft-centredpresentation of the love orphaned animals feel for their
human keepers is backed up by hard science.

Drew Fellman, who wrote
and produced the 3D documentary Born To Be Wild,says: "I chose
orangutans and elephants not just because they're adorable,but because
they have an emotional sophistication which mimics humanbehaviour." Dame
Sheldrick says the film shows the scientific world has beenwrong to
impose an "anthropomorphic block -- the idea that animals are not as
intelligent as us, are inferior to us, can't think, can't be happy and sad
like us.

"What this film shows is that these species have very human
emotions, theygrieve and mourn their dead as deeply as we do and have a
brain which issuperior to ours in many ways".

One of the most
startling aspects of the elephant brain, the film reveals,is an ability
to communicate via infrasound, which is inaudible to the humanear and a
key factor in returning rehabilitated orphans into the wild.

"The
elephants who have passed through the nursery make an arrangement tomeet
the new little ones at a certain point in the bush, which is unknown to
the humans," Dame Sheldrick says. "The keepers simply follow the elephants
there when they get the signal. They are taken first for a night out by
young bull elephants -- like a sleepover.

"And because they are the
wimpiest species, fearful even of a rabbit, ifthey find it too scary,
the matriarch will instruct the bulls to return theyoungster to the
stockades."

It is absolutely true that elephants never forget, she
says. "We have hadelephants who have babies in the wild and return to
show their babies to thehuman family who reared them," she says. "They
have such trust in us that ifthey suffer hurt they will drag themselves
back -- like Solango, who camewith a broken leg, accompanied by another
ex-orphan to protect him, andallowed the keepers to take care of him,
like putting himself in hospital.

"We have had orphans return years
after being released, with arrows in themand snares around their legs;
they will make their way back to the stockadesso their human family can
help them -- even when their hurt has beeninflicted by other humans."

As 19,000 elephants are lost every year to poachers and the erosion of
theirhabitat, saving every orphan possible is vital. While the females
becomecarers, the males attach themselves to older bulls to learn the
ropes ofresolving conflict without a fight to the death. "Like boys who
like tofraternise with other males, they develop a hero worship on the
biggest,strongest bulls," Dame Sheldrick says.

When these
high-ranking bulls are lost and unable to pass on rules and asense of
responsibility, deviant behaviour can develop. "You see indisrupted
elephant societies the same kinds of behaviour you see in humanones --
elephant rapes, for example, by younger bulls behaving badly," shesays.
On the happier side, elephants have an astonishingly sophisticatedsocial
life. "They use infrasound to keep in touch like we use phone andemail.
We know of one elephant in the north who travels 600 miles to thecoast,
streaking through areas of human habitation every single year, justto
see friends who live there. An elephant's friend, which includes humans
who cared for it, is a friend for life."

Orangutans do not share this
herd mentality, but have a maternal bond thatis just as strong. "They
are solitary animals, but they stay with theirmothers until they are
eight-years old," Fellman says. "While the babyelephant is tended by the
entire herd, the orangutan is only tended by itsmother; it is the most
intense bond in the animal kingdom.

"The orangutans raised by Birute
don't grow up quite like wild ones, becausetheir circle is much bigger,
but their carers and the orangutan playmatesthey learn from can take at
least some of the place of their mothers.

"It's far from an ideal
situation. I wanted to show how much pressureorangutans are under
because their habitat is being destroyed; humans aremerely doing what
they can to save the species." What the Imax film, whichopened this week
at the BFI cinema and will also play at London 's ScienceMuseum, does
not show is the tragic outcome for many orphans.

Some are too weak
and emaciated to survive or die of a broken heart at thetrauma of losing
their mothers. "It's like fairy tales, which are darkstories at heart,"
Fellman says.

"Elephants and orangutans are cute and accessible, but
they have tragedy intheir lives and some of its is just too graphic to
show. We are not shyingaway from it, but a lot of wildlife films are
gloom and doom and we aretrying to show the joy of these animals whose
second chance of life is abeacon of hope."

Having lost 96 orphans
as well as raising 130 to adulthood has almost beenmore than Dame
Sheldrick can bear. She says the work she started 50 yearsago was
foisted on her as the warden's wife at Kenya 's Tsavo National Park .

"They need milk for three years and it took so long to get the formula
right. That formula included learning the husbandry as well as how to enrich
milk in a way which would not kill them -- the babies needed someone to be
with them day and night. And it had to be a family rather than one person,
as I learned from the elephant who died of a broken heart when I left her to
attend to my daughter's wedding in Nairobi .

"I gave someone else my
dress to wear while looking after her -- but thescent didn't fool her. I
had to develop a family of keepers who know all theelephants and rotate
between the nursery in Nairobi and the rehabilitationstations in Tsavo."

At 77, the grandmother sometimes wishes she had not been saddled with
such a daunting task. "This is not a bunny-hugging project -- it's very
tough," shesays. "When a new elephant comes in we don't jump for joy,
because it meansat least 14 years of hard work and possibly heartbreak.

"And it takes a lot of courage. People ask how I can go on doing this
workafter weeping buckets over the ones we have loved and lost, but we
have tokeep on for the sake of the ones who need us.

"That's a
lesson the elephants have taught me -- grieve and mourn deeply theones
who have gone, but concentrate on trying to save the others.

"If I
had my life again and someone else would do the elephant slot, I would
rather not have to do it. However, when you've given an animal life and
they've grown to enjoy a normal happy life in the wild and had children of
their own they bring back to show you, that's the cherry on the top."

* *

*'Born To Be Wild' 3D is showing at London 's BFI IMAX and
the Science MuseumImax from 2 July *

*Born free: famous
conservationists who've given animals a second chance*

* *

*Birute
Galdikas *

A protege of paleontologist Louis Leakey, she has spent
nearly 40 yearsstudying, rescuing and rehabilitating orangutans in
Borneo .

*Jane Goodall *

The world's foremost chimpanzee
expert has studied the animals for 45 yearsin Tanzania , observing the
animals' capacity for emotion.

* *

*Dian Fossey*

The
third member of the group of female ape conservationists known as
"Leakey's Angels" studied gorillas for 18 years in Rwanda prior to her
murder in 1985.

* *

*George and Joy Adamson *

The Born
Free couple raised orphaned lion cubs and rehabilitated other bigcats in
Africa . They were murdered, separately, in the 1980s.